Firing incident: School, college admissions hit

Most of the educational institutions, including government and private schools, have been closed since the police firing, with most of the students staying indoors. The tense situation has forced  colleges, including the Tamil Nadu Maritime Academy, to postpone the exams. 

As the internet was down over the last few days, admissions to the Tamil Nadu Fisheries University at the Madurai-Harbour express road at Thoothukudi, were also severely affected. “During the past four days, admissions have been affected. Students could not register for admission online. We have opened a 24X7 helpline to explain the situation to the candidates seeking admission for 2018-19,” University’s Controller of Examination Dr C V Shanmugam told DT Next . He said though the administrative staff were able to come to the university, normalcy is expected to return only next week. Likewise, the state government-owned

Tamil Nadu Maritime Academy at South Beach Road was forced to postpone the written test for admissions. The university offers Bachelor of Fisheries, 10 masters degrees in Fisheries and seven PhDs in various disciplines. “New admissions for all these courses has come to halt,” Shanmugam said. In addition, the Anna University too postponed its examination,

which was scheduled on May 25, 26 and 28, for all of its affiliated colleges. Though university sources maintained that the postponement of exams was due to unforeseen circumstances, sources said it was due to anti-Sterlite protests. “The written test and declaration of results for selecting students for the commencement of the 31st pre sea course of general purpose rating is postponed to June 10,” a senior staff from the University said. Similarly, admission to several schools were also affected. S Jeyaraj, a teacher in Thoothukudi, said that despite the announcement of Class 10 results, many students could not go to schools due to the widespread fear. 

According to him, many parents could not receive results through SMS. “Since most of the major mobile networks were down, parents and students had no clue about the results in the morning,” Jeyaraj said. The school education department, meanwhile, announced the extension of deadline for Class 10 students applying for revaluation and retotalling in the affected areas in Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari districts.